Monarch’s recovery on course as turnover and traffic increase

MONARCH said yesterday that its turnaround plan is progressing faster than expected as the airline and holiday group posted rising turnover and passenger numbers.

The firm did not release an earnings figure for the year to October, but finance director Robert Palmer said the losses were “substantially reduced” on the £45m operating loss a year ago.

Turnover was up 9.2 per cent to £827.7m, on traffic up 1.6 per cent to 6.4m. Cost savings were as expected at £31.6m.

“We are very much on track on the turnaround and we are ahead of where we thought we would be in terms of airline growth. It’s all encouraging,” executive chairman Iain Rawlinson told City A.M.

“We are quite cautious for the year ahead in terms of yields, but we have some in-built growth in the airline both in terms of winter ski routes and continued expansion from our new bases over the summer.”